


For Love, I Would do Anything

by Kat_The_Kitkat



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Manipulation, Richie misses Eddie, Toxic Relationship, goopy boy manipulates pining lovesick teen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-02
Updated: 2020-06-02
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:15:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24504490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kat_The_Kitkat/pseuds/Kat_The_Kitkat
Summary: In an alternate universe following the Muschietti adaptations of Stephen King's IT, in which after the events of the first film the losers grow and leave Derry for college or whatever else life may hold for them. Only, not all of them leave. Rather than just Mike remaining in Derry, Richie also stays.Unfortunately for his yearning teen heart, something in a very familiar shape is still lurking in the forgotten Neibolt house.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Reddie - Relationship, neibolt eddie/richie tozier
Kudos: 10





	For Love, I Would do Anything

Growing up is generally associated with maturing in some capacity. Letting go of childish fears and imaginary friends. Transitioning from childhood to adulthood. Children are often not given the credit they deserve, dismissed by their elders. Aging, crossing the threshold that divides a more innocent youth and the first awkward steps of adulthood is often not as easy as it may seem on paper. Older individuals are expected to be mature, to take responsibility for things often out of their control. In some respects, they’ll never face a challenge as great as the ones presented in their youth. Especially when said youth has dark secrets. Locked up and forgotten, dismissed as they age, the secrets don’t often enjoy being left like this. They pound and thrash against the door in the subconscious that keeps the maturing adolescent safe, a filter that blocks out past traumas. Usually, not much happens. They grow, the issues might resurface later and they might seek counseling. But sometimes, sometimes the things they try to keep chained and locked away manage to wear down the locks holding them back. Sometimes, your past has evils in it that refuse to be forgotten.

Tucked away in the mountains and dense forests of upstate Maine, there was a town. Not many people really knew of this town though. Sure, it appeared on maps and GPS and Google Earth, but it was like something was institutionally drawing people's attention away from it. Clouding it, hiding it because somewhere deep down they've got the primal fear, the knowledge that  _ something _ is there and they should  _ stay away. _

Richie Tozier had grown up in this town, and he could, with 100% confidence, tell you that the town was absolutely not a place you wanted to stay in for long. On every telephone pole, building side, there were missing posters that protruded off of the wall, able to do so because of how many other posters had been layered underneath over time. The children in this town were normal enough, as far as children go. Some more odd than others. But most had a kind of deeply ingrained paranoia sitting somewhere in the back corner of their unconscious minds. Most of the time, this fear was able to be hidden from even themselves. Covered by normal kid problems and ideas, imaginary friends and games of tag. But It was there. Waiting.

The adults were significantly worse. Most had been corrupted in one way or another,  _ sleazy _ ,  _ cruel _ . But, like the children, most of the time it wasn't inherently obvious, and with some of the adults it was worse. On top of their more harsh personalities, things that had been shaped with sharp edges and spines, they were frighteningly oblivious, usually. It preferred children after all. The adults, their memories would fog over, and missing children were lost. Forgotten as another poster is put on top of their vulnerable face. The parents were slightly less oblivious. If their child happened to be one that went missing, they obviously noticed. But it was a different sort of acknowledgement, something seemingly colder. More blunt, because deep down, in the back of their minds, they knew It was there, and that their child(ren) weren't coming back.

Richie had experienced a loss when he was young. The four of them, he and his first few friends, often had to have Georgie tag along with them. Not that they really minded, Georgie was a good kid. Bill was sometimes annoyed by his presence, but he was Georgie's older brother, it was a given. In the year of 1989 though, Georgie vanished. And Bill, understandably, crumbled. A brother in desperate search of his younger sibling, scanning over map after map and building model after model of the sewers, trying to find where his brother had wound up. Mike's grandfather was right. This town was cursed. And Bill, accompanied by his original three companions and three new ones, had seen the cause first hand. A creature made of malice, uncaring, cruel. Something that knew your fears and turned them against you, something that, every 27 years or so, hunted children. Adults could be killed too, of course. But It could generally get stronger fear responses out of children, so they were the primary target.

The house stood. Looming. Waiting. Deep, deep below it's foundation the thing slowly put itself back together, and waited. He didn't like going near it. He never has, but especially now that he knows what lurks there. Older now, Richie had grown with the fear that he locked away deep inside himself, that It might come back. The scar on his palm burned sometimes.

He'd stayed. Watched as one by one, his found family left. He took up a job or two, got his own place, started taking classes. And after a while, it was easy. It was unnervingly easy how It had moved from his waking mind to his subconscious one. Richie was older. He wasn't scared of shadows or sewer drains. But because of something he doesn't even know is still present in his mind, a fear, he tends to avoid them regardless.

Generally, Richie liked to keep as much distance between himself and that damned house as physically possible. But using Neibolt Street as a cut-through was unavoidable sometimes. The stretch of road was unpaved, being instead covered with a thin layer of gravel. No one liked being here. Animals too, seemed to avoid the street and the rusted jaw trap house that sat on the corner. Adults wouldn’t be able to put a finger on it, but something deep down tells them to keep away. And as such, the road has remained unpaved. Ratty converse crunch against the misshapen pebbles, his hands stuffed deep into the pockets of his worn jean jacket.

Fall had crept into the town, first attacking the trees that surrounded it. Skeletal remains of trees that he’s pretty sure are  _ evergreens _ paired with dead shrubs and pale yellowish grass. He’s never paid it much attention, but on this side of town it seems that rather than first transitioning into the vibrant reds and yellows commonly associated with fall, the leaves instead die instantaneously. As if they had been overly excited, ready to leave this godless town. Even the trees knew. 

They, perhaps, knew better than everything else.

The collar of Richie’s jean jacket is lined in a plush faux fur that bundles into bits, looking more like wool than anything else. It’s an off white, and it grazes the back of his neck as he walks. It protects him from the wind that sweeps up behind his feet and rushes past his ears, but not as well as it probably should. The house draws closer, Richie’s eyes remaining on his faded red converse, subconsciously avoiding the harsh, hungry gaze that the broken windows stared at him with. 

Humans though, are more flighty than most would assume though. From a more primitive time, the patterns and threats they needed to spot had remained. Movement flickers to his right, something skuttling past one of the yellowed windows. Before he can even think about it, his head has turned towards the detected movement, and he slowly scans over the dilapidated structure. It hasn’t changed much. Dead and grey, rotting from the inside out it seems. Rusted fence rods curl and bend towards the waiting maw, angled like the backwards facing teeth of some sort of voracious beast. The longer he looks at it, the more uneasy he feels. But, he sees nothing. An animal, he tells himself. But as he turns his head back towards the direction he’s walking in, something else shifts in the corner of his eye and he hears whispers. 

The prophetic feeling of regret makes his skin itch, but still, Richie takes one cautious step towards the house. 

Then another.

The lawn somehow looked more dead than the rest of the grass- twigs of plants he couldn’t identify sprung from the earth, reaching towards the sky like the clawing hands of the undead. The front step creeks frighteningly under his weight, and he pauses, listening. Nothing. Not even the wind. He wets his lips, nervous for reasons he can’t articulate. Slowly, slowly, he leans closer, and presses his ear against the door. Silence rings from the otherside, disturbed by the pounding of the blood in his ears. 

It’s ridiculous. He’s not a child, and it was probably just some squirrel or raccoon- nothing that needed investigating. Still, he inhales deeply, squeezing his eyes shut as he steels himself- his hand twisting the knob and shoving the door open before he can think twice about it. 

His eyes are still shut, and after a moment of silence, he cracks one open. He sees nothing other than the few bits of aged furniture and plants that had burst through the floorboards and windows, yet gave off the feeling that they had never once been living. Wallpaper peels, the floor screams under his steps. And foolishly, foolishly, Richie walks deeper into the lair.

The kitchen rests where most would assume the kitchen to be, dated like everything else here, covered in a thick layer of grime that he couldn’t identify the cause of. The cabinets were falling off of the walls, most of their doors missing, ripped away and exposing the ribcage of shelves left within, empty. He breathes in a breath of stale air, trying to relax his shoulders. Nothing. There was nothing, just like he thought. 

Behind him there’s a few faint drips of something thicker than water against the floor, then a kind of gurgling that can be compared to that of a person with a very bad respiratory infection- or perhaps of someone drowning. It bubbles and the drips become louder, more full and more frequent. *”Richie,”* the gurgles say. 

He whips around, confronting the awful rotting stench and viscous drips. The voice- the voice almost sounded like-- 

It’s Eddie.

Or well, it’s a mimic of the real Eddie- warped by the fears of the losers that had ventured into the depths of the sewers below the house years prior. He’s dirty, skin pale with harsh black smudges and grime, eyes a pale, glossy white. Dripping over the rims of his eyelids, spilling over his teeth and out of his mouth, was a thick tar looking substance. 

“Richie,” The mimic tries again, being marginally more successful this time around in its attempt to copy Eddie’s actual voice. 

Richie stares, eyes wide and body tense like a stretched rubber band, horrified. It takes a step closer, a thicker wave of goop flowing from behind stained teeth. Strangely, it doesn’t seem… aggressive. It even dares to sound *scared*. 

It’s not Eddie. He knows this with every cell, every fiber of his being. The thing standing just a few feet away is absolutely, without a doubt, *not* Eddie. And still, knowing this to be an undeniable truth, Richie thinks of the boy that left for college nearly a year ago. He thinks about an old carving he’d made into the splintered wood of the *Kissing Bridge*. And his heart bleeds. 

Unable to ignore something that looks, that sounds, so much like Eddie-- Even a heavily distorted version of Eddie- he doesn’t run, instead he swallows thickly, hoping to dislodge the sharp cluster of fear that has collected somewhere behind his adam’s apple. _“Eds..?”_

**Author's Note:**

> so i honestly don't know where i'm going with this? I want it to be a multi chapter thing, and i really, really want to actually commit to this one but if you're familiar with my other works you'll know i have a really hard time committing to working on things that require more mental effort. 
> 
> Regardless, i truly do hope to continue this, i just can't say if i actually will and if i do how long pauses between updates will be. I hope you enjoy my stupid garbage anyways though!! :)


End file.
